First look at the new 2017 Specialized Enduro

The latest crops of mountain biking goodies for 2017 are slowly trailing in from the interwebs, and it’s gonna be a crazy visual experience with all the new stuff that’s being released into the wild from our favourite companies. We got news of the new 2017 Specialized Enduro from Specialized Asia Pacific, and we’ve got some press photos and info to share.

The Specialized Enduro has been synonymous for riders in Singapore with All Mountain and Enduro riding and it’s amazing to see that the model has been around for a decade. The latest iteration of the Enduro is set once again to push riding boundaries to new heights and whole lot more.

We’re digging this stealth carbon 650B variant!

Specialized has released the Enduro frames in the 2 wheel sizes, with an added feature for the 29er. Both frames look almost similar with key geometry changes for each wheel size. Here’s some numbers to give you an idea;

Skimming through the press release, we’ve also found a couple of improvements made to the frame, and the most notable one was of course, they’re switching back to threaded bottom brackets! This move by Specialized marks my own belief that press-fit BBs should burn in hell. Yes, that’s how much I hate them. Threaded BB means no more annoying @#$%^&* creaks and much much much longer BB life.

On the squishy side of things, the new Enduros comes stock with suspension from Ohlins which features low and high speed compression, autosag and shock block mounting hardware. We’ve never had the chance to try out any of Ohlins offerings, but damn, those shocks look really good. With tons of racing and performance history, we can only imagine how good these shocks can be. One thing to note though, that there are currently no service centres for Ohlins’ mtb shocks and forks here in Singapore, so if you fried your squish, be prepared to have a backup suspension solution while Specialized sorts out your service.

The new Specialized PRO Carbon 29er in 6Fattie.

The 650B version of the 2017 Specialized Enduro

SWAT™ integration stands for storage, water, air, and tools, and both the 650B and 29er frames feature this handy utility for that extra storage space. We’ve seen some weird stuff that people can squeeze into that SWAT space and a friend of ours even managed to chuck in a packet of roti prata for his mid-ride snack.

Cable routing looks clean from the photos and cables cleanly enter the head tube and follow independently molded tubes through the length of the down tube. Since there’s moulded tubes for the housing to go through, changing your cable housing should be a fuss-free process. Both bikes/frames are also specifically designed for 1x drivetrains, which has been a popular move for most bike companies. 1x drivetrains with 10spd/11spd gears are pretty much everything you need these days for most of the trails around Singapore.

That’s all that we have from Specialized’s press release and we’re looking forward to see if we can snag a test bike to really get a feel of this new trail-slaying beast.